Teaching Shen Yue to cultivate wasn't something Lu Chenyuan had planned so soon. But after everything—the field's quiet blooming, her unspoken bond with the plants, the strange shimmer around her hands—it felt inevitable. It was time.
Still, he approached it carefully. Not as a master commanding a disciple, but as someone guiding a friend across unfamiliar ground.
They started at dawn, in the small, drafty room they shared. Shen Yue sat across from him on a worn rush mat, the soft light of morning filtering through cracked window paper. Dust hung in the air like memory. Outside, a bird called once, then went quiet.
Chenyuan adjusted his posture and smiled gently. "We'll begin with the basics," he said. "Breath, awareness, and listening. Cultivation doesn't start with strength. It starts with stillness."
Shen Yue nodded, though her back was stiff and her eyes a little too wide. She wasn't afraid, not exactly—but the weight of expectation clung to her shoulders. Nineteen years of being told she was cursed had left marks that went deeper than skin.
"Close your eyes," he continued. "Inhale slowly. Let the breath settle in your belly. Then exhale, like you're letting go of something heavy."
She obeyed, her breath shallow at first, uneven. But with each count, she grew a little steadier. Her hands unclenched. Her shoulders dropped by a hair.
"The energy inside us—Qi—it isn't something you control. Not at first. It's something you notice. Something you greet like an old friend who forgot how to knock."
A few minutes passed. Shen Yue's face was smooth, but a fine line crept between her brows. "I… feel something," she whispered. "Like threads. Tangled. Some warm, some… prickly. In my arms. My chest."
Chenyuan leaned forward slightly, voice low and calm. "That's your Wood Qi. It's been lying dormant, knotted up for years. Maybe since birth. You're not imagining it."
Her lips parted slightly. She looked as though she wanted to speak, then thought better of it.
"Don't try to fix it," he said. "Not yet. Just breathe toward it. Like wind moving through tall grass. Gentle. Patient."
To help her, he extended a thread of his own Azurewood Qi—soft and slow, not to shape her energy, but to resonate with it. Like humming a note to help someone find the pitch.
Minutes passed. A few beads of sweat gathered at Shen Yue's brow. When she opened her eyes, her face was pale, and her breathing a little shaky—but her eyes…
There was something different in them now.
"I didn't move it," she said softly. "But I felt it. Really felt it."
"That's enough for today," Chenyuan said, smiling. "Tomorrow, we try again."
And they did.
Every morning before the chores began, they met in that same spot. Shen Yue sat, closed her eyes, and reached inward. Most days, the Qi inside her stayed stubborn and tangled. There were mornings where she opened her eyes frustrated, saying only, "Nothing today."
But not all days were the same.
Once, she smiled faintly and said, "One thread shifted. Just a little." Another time, she described a moment of warmth in her fingertips, like dew warming under sunlight.
He watched as she changed, little by little. Her steps grew quieter, her attention sharper. In the field, the way her hands moved among the millet—slow, steady, sure—held the same quiet patience she brought to her meditations. That green shimmer he'd seen before now lingered longer around her fingers, even danced briefly between her palms when she was lost in thought.
The field itself had become a mirror to their progress. The Iron Vigor Millet was tall now, the grain swelling beneath thick husks, promising a harvest richer than they had hoped. Uncle Liu often stood at the edge of the rows with a wistful smile, arms folded behind his back.
"Look at that," he'd say, more to himself than anyone else. "A proper field again. It's been years."
The nine surviving Green Dew Grass plants had also matured—tender, delicate things with star-shaped leaves that glistened like morning frost. Chenyuan had Shen Yue harvest a few of the outer leaves under his watchful eye.
She was meticulous. Her small hands trembled at first, but once she found her rhythm, each motion was careful and confident. When she finished, he caught a subtle fragrance rising from the basket—a fresh, clean scent that felt more like a promise than a product.
"Perfect," he told her. And he meant it.
The leaves were set to dry on a cloth in their room. For days afterward, the scent lingered—an earthy, sweet aroma that became part of their home.
Life was still hard. Meals were simple. Their spirit stones untouched, their roof still leaked when the wind came from the west. But there was… rhythm now. And meaning. Shen Yue's quiet presence, once marked by silence born of fear, had softened into something more thoughtful. Sometimes, after meditation, she would ask simple questions about Qi circulation or meridian paths. She didn't always understand, but she always listened.
Chenyuan kept cultivating as well, quietly firming his grasp on the Fourth Layer, inching toward the Fifth. He checked the Prosperity Meter now and then—3 had crept up to 5. Just a number, but it meant something was working.
Then one evening, Uncle Liu returned from a trip to Black Rock Town with a furrowed brow and a heavy tone.
"The Stone Tiger Li Clan's stirring," he said after Shen Yue had gone to rest. "Li Hu's boasting again. Claims he's almost at the Fifth Layer."
Chenyuan's expression turned grim. Li Hu reaching the Fifth would shift the balance—again. They were gaining ground, but slowly. Too slowly.
"We need to move faster," he said quietly.
And as if the heavens had heard, a few days later, it happened.
During morning meditation, Shen Yue suddenly gasped. Her eyes flew open, shining with something like shock—and joy.
"Patriarch Lu," she whispered. "One of the threads—it moved. Not just shifted. It flowed. I felt it. Warm, clear… like when I touch the Green Dew Grass. It felt alive."
Chenyuan reached out with his senses. There it was—a small, steady stream of Qi, flowing gently through one of her formerly blocked meridians. Not much. But real.
He couldn't help the grin that spread across his face. "You've done it. This is your first step, Shen Yue. Your true first step."
She looked down at her hands, then back up at him. There were tears in her eyes, but she wasn't crying.
"I thought I was broken," she whispered. "But I'm not."
"No," he said. "You're waking up."
And just like that, something shifted in the quiet air between them.
A girl once called cursed had begun to find her place in the world. And the Wood Spirit, tangled though it still was, had begun to stir.